Reese Witherspoon Is Making Another ‘Legally Blonde’ Sequel

It’s been 15 years since we last caught up with Elle Woods, and it’s easy to imagine that a whole lot has happened to our favorite unlikely law school grad in that amount of time. (We lost a lot of good women to bending and snapping, that’s for sure.) Despite the curse that seems to plague most delayed comedy sequels (Zoolander 2 and Anchorman 2, for instance), it looks like Reese Witherspoon has decided to take a crack at it with Legally Blonde 3.

Per Deadline, Witherspoon is close to making a deal to revive Elle Woods with the help of Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah — the writing duo behind the original Legally Blonde, released in 2001. And it seems that Witherspoon is taking inspiration from Ms. Woods herself by attempting the near-impossible feat of making a comedy sequel released several years after its predecessor that’s actually good. Witherspoon will produce the sequel through her company, Hello Sunshine.

Update: It’s official! Witherspoon confirmed the news in the most Elle Woods way ever on Thursday:

Witherspoon hasn’t portrayed Elle Woods since 2003’s lesser-beloved sequel, Red, White and Blonde, in which the least likely Ivy League law school student of all time travels to Washington D.C. to advocate for animal rights (with the help of Sally Field). In the intervening years, it’s easy to imagine that the relentlessly-optimistic Elle has achieved quite a bit. Although plot details haven’t yet been revealed, Deadline reports that the third film will be centered around female empowerment and speak to old and new fans alike — sounds like a fairly obvious approach, but one that could, with the right story, really resonate with its audience.